First Kiss Her mouth fell into my mouth like a summer snow, like a 5th season, like a fresh Eden, like Eden when Eve made God whimper with the liquid tilt of her hips— her kiss hurt like that— I mean, it was as if she’d mixed the sweat of an angel with the taste of a tangerine, I swear. My mouth had been a helmet forever greased with secrets, my mouth a dead-end street a little bit lit by teeth—my heart, a clam slammed shut at the bottom of a dark, but her mouth pulled up like a baby-blue Cadillac packed with canaries driven by a toucan—I swear those lips said bright wings when we kissed, wild and precise—as if she were teaching a seahorse to speak— her mouth so careful, chumming the first vowel from my throat until my brain was a piano banged loud, hammered like that— it was like, I swear her tongue was Saturn’s 7th moon— hot like that, hot and cold and circling, circling, turning me into a glad planet— sun on one side, night pouring her slow hand over the other: one fire flying the kite of another. Her kiss, I swear—if the Great Mother rushed open the moon like a gift and you were there to feel your shadow finally unhooked from your wrist. That’d be it, but even sweeter— like a riot of peg-legged priests on pogo-sticks, up and up, this way and this, not falling but on and on like that, badly behaved but holy—I swear! That kiss: both lips utterly committed to the world like a Peace Corps, like a free store, forever and always a new city—no locks, no walls, just doors—like that, I swear, like that.
Prvi poljubac Njena usta su pala na moja, kao letnji sneg, peto godišnje doba, ponovni raj, kao raj kada je Eva naterala boga da plače za njenim njišućim bokovima. Njen poljubac je boleo toliko. Mislim, bilo je kao da je pomešala znoj anđela sa ukusom mandarine. Kunem se, moja su usta oduvek bila oklop podmazan tajnama, a moja usta ćorsokak sa fenjerima od zuba, moje srce - školjka, zatočena na dnu mraka. Ali njene su se usne zaustavile, poput bebi-plavog kadilaka, prepunog kanarinaca, kojeg je vozio tukan - kunem se, te usne su raširile sjajna krila kada smo se poljubili, divlja i precizna - kao da uči govoru morskog konjica - njene usne su tako pažljivo pecale prvi samoglasnik iz moga grla, dok moj mozak nije postao klavir koji je lupao snažno, udarao tako. Bilo je, kunem se, kao da je njen jezik Saturnov sedmi mesec - toliko vreo, vreo i hladan, kružio je, kružio je, pretvarajući me u planetu sreće - sunce sa jedne strane, noć preliva njenu sporu ruku preko druge: jedna vatra koja pušta zmaja onog drugog. Njen poljubac, kunem se, kao da je Velika majka pohitala da otvori mesec, kao poklon, a vi ste tu bili da biste osetili kako se senka konačno otkačila od vašeg zgloba. Tako bi to izgledalo, ali još slađe, kao pobuna jednonogih sveštenika na federima, uvis i još više, ovako, ne padajući, već nastavljajući tako, nevaljalo, a opet sveto, kunem se! Taj poljubac, obe usne potpuno posvećene svetu, poput Mirovnih korpusa, kao besplatna radnja, uvek i zauvek, nov grad bez brava i zidova, samo vrata, baš tako, kunem se, upravo tako.